The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1887-10-04
THE WEEKLY GA TUESDAY OCTOBER 1887

an average OF S5o000 and income bonds Of
SJo,0J0 more, making 100000 in bulk that
the lease has paid, besides the dividends on
stock and incomes, to each of the % shares.
In IN bonds are ten per cent quarterly honds,
and there are not many outstanding now, hav-
ing been retired by a sinking fund which
was made by setting apart some of the earn
ings OF the road. They took the road, which
paid its own way, and it has made them enor-
nous fortunes, with no capital invested
"Governor Brown, in his testimony before
a legislative committee, says it did not. In
1880 he said the lesSeeS had put half q million
OF money on the road, but in the year 1882 he
and they claimed more than 81 900, zoo, in Full
ton superior court, after making allowance for
the states rails, ETC., that he had re-
moved and used. Colonel Julius l.. Brown, tho
attorney of the road, emphatically denied the
claim of the lessees for betterments in an ar
gument before the judiciary committee in
1882.
1.-The Improvements put on the road by the
lessees cannot be removed. They are fixtures.
How can bridges or ballast or steel rails be
carried off If the lessees were to seek to re-
move personal property Gears and engines) be-
longing to the state they would be subject to
indictment and criminal prosecution. They
are harmless to iniure the state il they were TO
attempt it.
"Yet Senator Brown on July brought for
ward a letter to Governor Gordon in which he
plainly threatened to run down and dismantle
the road, which would be equal to tenant
scraping the paint off a house which he had
lived in at nominal rent for twenty long
years.
Governor Brown told General Gordon that
he received forty-four engines, of which
twelve were condemned and almost worthless,
the remaining thirty-twosb badly worn.
"My God! Has this man forgotten the re-
port he presented to the lessees himself in the
year 1873, when three only were condemned,
nine i'll running ORDER and twenty-seven in
good order, which was only what he could say
of the engines bought by tbs lessees? 1t passes
comprehension that he should thus forget him.
self in this matter
"What sort of road-bed did they get? Gov
ernor Brown tells Governor Gordon, in 1887,
that it was dangerous to pass over. Here are
our figures:
1871 paid lessees So 482 21 1872 SIS 9o607 1873 SILL
$50 49, 1874 $50 1885, 1915 $40 S23 Oh 1876 ST. co.
1877 1906 1878, &c. 400; 1879 $2l S20 76 1880
$16495.62i 1881, 81, 251 .0S; 1889, S77O.S5.
Sometimes they lost bridge by high water,
sometimes by fire, and they had to rebuild to use
the road at all. A man who rents q farm and
has to use barn to shelter his crop, would
hardly do without, which had been lost by
storm or set atire, if he had engaged to return
it in as good order as he found it. Yet all
these things are called betterments and the
taxpayer must pay them, or see the best prop
erty the state ever owned run down to ruin
and destruction. Alas! What limit is there
to greed?
"Govemor Brown tells Governor Gordon, on
July 8, that it has been enormous. Let us get
his own figures:
1S71-He bought nothing and built moth
ing.